FDA approval of RU-486 casts campaign spotlight on abortion

Published: Saturday, September 30, 2000

WASHINGTON {AP} The federal government's approval of an abortion pill 40 days before the presidential election has raised the visibility of an issue Republican George W. Bush does not want to talk about.

Bush and Democrat Al Gore are in pitched combat on education, taxes, health care, the budget, Social Security, Medicare, energy, defense even foreign policy once in a blue moon.

Not abortion, despite Gore's occasional attempts to draw his opponent into an issue that can cut his way.

Bush's imperative, to attract moderate voters and moderate women in particular, is complicated by the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the abortion pill RU-486. It draws attention to the fact he opposes abortion rights supported by many moderate women.

Pat Robertson, Christian Coalition founder, acknowledged the potential benefit to Gore, saying Friday the FDA's decision was a ploy to help the vice president politically.

Robertson noted how measured Bush was in responding to the decision. Bush said in a short statement the decision was wrong but did not indicate he would try to do anything to change it.

"Al Gore is going to use this measure against Governor Bush," said Judy Ost, a coalition member from Littlestown, Pa., in town for the group's annual meeting. "He's going to try to make it look like the governor is against women, which he's not."

The presidential debate Tuesday night will give Gore his first full-bore opportunity to exploit the issue if he chooses. He's already broached the subject on a TV talk show, pointing out Bush's position on abortion even while saying the pill should not become political.

But Gore is expected to tread with some care himself, because the abortion issue stirs crosscurrents that do not all work to his benefit.

There is, for example, the prospect that abortion might not become nearly as "rare" as he and President Clinton have said for years they want it to be even as their administration has pushed from its earliest days to get the pill into the United States.

Nor do Democrats want attention paid to the Clinton-Gore administration's support for the legality of a procedure called partial-birth abortion by its critics.

That's one aspect of abortion that Bush has not hesitated to attack, and one that many Democrats and voters find as objectionable as Republicans.

Public opinion on abortion is nuanced and not completely in sync with the Democratic Party's and Gore's support for unrestricted abortion rights.